


A History of Love

by the__magpie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x12 Coda, Post-Episode: s12e12 Stuck In The Middle (With You), Stop Hurting Cas 2k17, Team Free Will, The Winchester Family, lots and lots and lots i'm practically overflowing, lots of Cas feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 02:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9798422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the__magpie/pseuds/the__magpie
Summary: "Castiel walks upon the earth like a man but he holds it at a distance. He doesn’t know how to love like the humans do. He doesn’t even know if he can."12x12 coda





	

**Author's Note:**

> lisTEN I LOVE CASTIEL A LOT OKAY.  
> This was written super fast after 12x12 aired, so apologies if there are stupid mistakes.  
> Honestly this could have gone on for days and days if I'd let it. I love Castiel A Lot.

Objectively, Castiel knows what love is. It would be impossible for him to spend his existence watching humanity without gaining some understanding of it. For the humans, it drives and defines their lives – sometimes, it seems to be the only thing they think about, talk about, write about. Castiel sees it everywhere in his father’s creation. He sees it in Lily Sunder’s grief at losing her daughter. He sees it in Jimmy Novak’s pleas to protect his wife and daughter.

He sees it in the way that Dean Winchester looks at his brother. He sees it in the way that Bobby Singer looks at his boys.

(Nobody has ever looked at Castiel in that way.)

Objectively, Castiel knows that love is a powerful force that even the humans struggle to comprehend. He knows that, as an angel, it is not his duty to love. He protects humanity, but he does not love them. He knows he is supposed to love his father, but if that feeling is love he does not know why the humans hold it in such high regard.

Castiel walks upon the earth like a man but he holds it at a distance. He doesn’t know how to love like the humans do. He doesn’t even know if he can.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The apocalypse is coming and Castiel doesn’t leave the Winchesters’ side. Heaven is in chaos and Hell is rising but Castiel stays close to the two humans that he has sworn to protect. He doesn’t fully understand it – his mission ended long ago and he has defied the orders that his superiors spent millennia instilling into him. But there is something in the way the Winchesters look at him. The way the nickname they have given him falls from their lips as if it belongs there. They _trust_ him, although they have every reason not to. Castiel has never been trusted before. He goes against everything he has spent his existence learning and stays close to them. He feels himself falling and he knows that he is giving up everything to do this and doubts grow in his mind, but then Dean claps him on the back and Sam tosses him a beer and the doubts fade.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The last thing Castiel wants to do is betray the Winchesters, but Heaven is at war and he has never been more desperate. He feels pulled in every direction. He doesn’t know who to trust anymore – Crowley or Raphael or demons or angels. Then the Winchesters convince him to stay one night at Bobby’s house and he listens as they bicker over which Indiana Jones movie to watch. He finds himself smiling because he knows what this is. _This_ is what love looks like. For a few moments, he is immeasurably proud of himself for recognizing it.

When they find out, as he always knew they eventually would, the look on their faces is like a physical pain. This is not love. This is hatred and betrayal. Castiel still believes that what he is doing is right, but their every word digs into his skin. He understands now that they could never love him. He is too foreign, too different. He is an angel and he cannot know what love feels like. They leave him in the circle of fire and he knows that they will never trust him again.

If Castiel had a heart, it would be breaking.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Castiel dies, and when he returns he retreats into himself. Once, he almost believed he could be like them, but he now knows that it is impossible. Angels and humans don’t love each other. Still, he finds himself pulled back in again. The Winchesters need him and he can almost convince himself that it’s because they care, not merely because he is useful.

When he and Dean get stuck in Purgatory, it is easy to leave Dean. Castiel has spent the last years leaving them, always on the edges, protecting them but never getting too close. If he gets too close, they will all get hurt. He leaves because he knows that Dean will be safer without him. They are always better without him. He learns to shut out Dean’s prayers, telling himself over and over that Dean doesn’t need him. Castiel doesn’t deserve to be saved, certainly not by the man who already saved him.

Purgatory is silent and leaves too much room for thinking. Castiel finds himself wondering if this means that he loves them. He has seen Sam and Dean sacrifice themselves for each other, and he knows that they love each other. Maybe Castiel doing the same for them means that he loves them.

He pushes the thought away. Angels can’t love, he reminds himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

(Later, after leaving Purgatory, after Naomi and the crypt, Castiel sits in the library of the bunker, a Men of Letters book spread across the table. Sam sits in the seat beside him and opens up his laptop without a word. Dean hands Castiel a cup of coffee and sits across from them. Their eyes meet for a moment and Dean nods briefly. It feels like forgiveness.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

As a human, Castiel feels so many things. Hunger, thirst, aches, itches, sores, pains. He doesn’t know how to sort through all of them. He is overwhelmed with feeling. When April touches him, he knows it should feel right – he wants it to feel right – but it doesn’t. It feels like the farthest thing from right. _This isn’t love_ , he thinks. He doesn’t understand how humans can sort through all of it without exploding.

He sees the silver blade enter his stomach, but when he wakes up he doesn’t feel any pain. Instead, he feels the weight of Dean’s hand. He sees the Winchesters for the first time with his human eyes. _Oh_ , he thinks. He doesn’t know what it is, but something feels right.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He becomes an angel again, but the feeling doesn’t go away. He tries to keep his distance from the Winchesters but finds himself coming back to them again and again. They are the twin, bright stars that he orbits around, unable to free himself from their pull. He knows that he is growing farther from his own brothers and sisters; they don’t understand him and at times he doesn’t even understand himself.

 _Perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long_ , he tells Hannah. _There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. …Love._ The word feels strange in his mouth. Heavy, somehow. He isn’t sure if he wants to take it back.

Later, Hannah asks, _Do you love them?_

 _Angels can’t love_ , Castiel says, automatically.

She gives him a strange, shrewd look. _You know that’s not true._

Castiel doesn’t know what’s true anymore.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Some days, it’s barely there. He can pretend that he’s as he once was: high, cold, unaffected. Then something will happen – Claire will roll her eyes and hide a smile from him, Charlie will hug him and call them best friends, Sam will show him how to hack government websites, Dean will let him choose the music in the Impala – and it comes rushing back. He knows that his grace isn’t fully restored, but sometimes he wonders if part of his humanity refused to go away when he became an angel again. Then he remembers that he felt this way even before he fell.

Angels can’t love, he reminds himself for what feels like the thousandth time.

_You know that’s not true._

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He gives himself to Lucifer to save them. He doesn’t even think of the repercussions on his vessel or the world; all he can think is that they need to be safe. Nothing else matters – certainly not his own life.

Later, he meets his father face to face for the first time. He wants to feel something other than this anger and confusion. He is supposed to love him – his father created him and these humans and this whole hopeless, broken, beautiful planet. But all he wants to do is shout at him, _Why did you make me this way? Why didn’t you give me a place to belong?_

As if he knows what Castiel is thinking, Chuck catches his eyes and smiles and says, _I did, Castiel._

 

 

* * *

 

Castiel has never had a family. He has his brothers and sisters, but they never loved him the way the humans love each other. His father left him and couldn’t be bothered to answer his prayers or those of the billions of others left behind, waiting. Every person or being that Castiel has ever cared about has died, often through Castiel’s own hands.

Except the Winchesters.

When Castiel’s blade splits through Billie’s vessel and floods the dark road with celestial light, he feels as though he himself is splitting open. He has cared for these humans in a way he didn’t know he was capable of, even though he knows that they don’t care for him. He has always been a tool for them. It doesn’t matter, though, not anymore. All that matters is that they are safe.

 _You mean too much to me._ His voice breaks and he feels human, cut open. They stare at him, the three of them, the closest thing he has ever come to a family. It doesn’t matter, he reminds himself, that they don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Now, with his vessel torn open and the life bleeding out of him, he knows he has to tell them. Even if it doesn’t mean a thing to them, it means everything to him. It means that he is no longer the shining, incorruptible warrior of God that he was supposed to be. He has fallen so many times and in so many ways, and each time he has returned to the Winchesters. He is not human, but he has learned more about the way humans love in his last eight years walking the earth than he did in the millions of years watching from afar. If he is going to die, he wants them to know the most important thing he has learned from them.

“I love you,” Castiel says, and they feel like the truest words he has ever spoken.

Then Dean says, “We’re family. And we don’t leave family behind.”

Something instead Castiel breaks open because _oh. They love him._ They don’t need to say it. They love him too and they won’t leave him, just as he won’t leave them. They are family.

Castiel is dying but at least in this moment, he feels more alive than he has in his entire existence.

 _This,_ he thinks, _this is love._


End file.
